National News

'Heroic' female cop stopped Fort Hood shooter

(NEWSER) – The man who shot three people dead at Fort Hood military base before killing himself has been identified as Army Spec. Ivan Lopez, a military truck driver who was being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder. The Texas base's commander says the 34-year-old, who served in Iraq for four months in 2011, "had behavioral health and mental health issues" and had self-reported a traumatic brain injury after returning from Iraq, theWashington Post reports. Specifically, CNN reports that he suffered from depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric issues. "There is no indication that this incident is related to terrorism, although we are not ruling anything out," the commander says.

Authorities say the shooting spree began when Lopez entered a building and began firing a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol that he wasn't authorized to have on base, the AP reports. It was a privately-owned weapon he'd recently bought locally and had not registered at the base.

He then drove to another building and opened fire there. After he was confronted in a parking lot by a military policewoman who was about 20 feet away, he put his hands on his head before reaching into his jacket. He shot himself in the head when she drew her weapon,NBC News reports. It was "clearly heroic, what she did at that moment in time," the commander says, adding, "She did exactly what we expect of a United States soldier."